


A Spark of Pain

by bookstorequeer



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Adorable Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV), Bacta (Star Wars), Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s02e05 The Jedi, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, ManDadlorian, Mandalorian Clans (Star Wars), Medical Inaccuracies, Sick Character, Sickfic, Spoilers, The Mandalorian (TV) Season 2, The Mandalorian (TV) Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:55:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27922639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookstorequeer/pseuds/bookstorequeer
Summary: It started with an ache in his chest.Well, no, it started with a blaster fight and being thrown through a wall. Itescalatedwith a sharp pang beneath his ribs.
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Din Djarin
Comments: 8
Kudos: 244





	A Spark of Pain

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for **The Mandalorian** up to **Chapter 13: The Jedi**. You might also want to have seen **Chapter 14** because it did affect the tone of this, but there are no specific spoilers.
> 
> And I know we know his name but until I actually hear the Mandalorian introduce himself, I'm going to over-abuse " _he_ " instead.

It started with an ache in his chest.

Well, no, it started with a blaster fight and being thrown through a wall. It _escalated_ with a sharp pang beneath his ribs. The perils of Greef Karga calling in an unexpectedly well-armed favour.

One thing the Fighting Corps had taught him early was to never ignore an injury. Once you were free of whatever situation had caused it, always take stock of your physicality before moving on to the next bounty. A festering wound could mean the difference between fast enough and too slow to save yourself during your next skirmish.

So they hopped the _Razor Crest_ a few thousand leagues away from the city and touched down again where it was quiet. He had everything he should need on the _Crest_. He just had to fish it out and make use of it.

The pain flared, hot in the centre of his chest, as he jumped down from the cockpit and staggered, groaning. A hand rubbed the middle of his plate armour but practice told him he could feel it as comfort on his skin.

"Don't worry, kid," he muttered, unlocking the medcloset hidden behind his weapons. "I'm going to be fine." Otherwise he'd have a heads up on his helmet display; the benefit to having it hooked into his vitals.

He didn't get the coo he expected.

"Kid?"

The sleep pod was open; the child had been in the hammock when they'd made the jump away from the city. The fight had been a bit rough and their latest hover-pram had gotten knocked around, so he'd set the kid in to rest.

But there was no little green head looking up at him, no wide black eyes blinking and making a warmth pulse in his heart.

He'd been more aware of _that_ since Ahsoka Tano had told them of the child's growing connection to him. He'd known about his own end since he'd gone back for the little womprat on Nevarro the first time. A spark had settled in his chest when they first locked eyes; he'd been ignoring the feeling but it was growing more difficult to dismiss. He couldn't seem to stop thinking about the kid, even when he should have left it all behind him. Life would have been easier if he'd just walked away. Probably.

But now there was no kid and no shadow of a second heartbeat when he looked at him, when it was quiet and he thought about him.

"Grogu?"

The helmet display squeaked a warning that his heart rate was climbing. His hands trembled inside his gloves and he spun around at a sound behind him, blaster in hand and panting.

Metal screeched at knee height and he knelt at the sight of a skewed vent. Gun thrown away, he wrenched the grate aside and pulled out the precious bundle within.

"Why the _pfassk_ were you in there?"

He couldn't understand the responding gurgle but pain spiked again. The ship spun like a gunfight around him and he sat with a thunk of armour on flooring.

"What...?"

Those dark eyes were wider and wetter than he'd seen them and he didn't need his helmet display to know something was wrong. The white hot flare in his chest told him that. Clenching his jaw tightly enough to make his teeth squeak, he only hesitated a racing heartbeat before tossing his gloves aside. A shock ran up his hand at the first brush of skin against his in years but he needed to better get a sense of the tiny soul in his arms. He marvelled at how perfectly Grogu's head fit in his bare palm.

"What's wrong?"

The words shook but got him a whimper and a wince. The child pushed face-first against his hand, eyes squeezing shut. His foundling's skin was softer than it seemed but also much hotter than it should be. A clammy hand curled against his ribs but cold plate armour got a whine when the foundling tried to lean close.

His helmet display pinged a warning and he frowned beneath the beskar. He had no proper baseline for whatever species Grogu was and cursed himself for never thinking to record them. Why hadn't he taken the time to do a proper medscan? He could have _hours_ of recorded data but instead he had nothing. He was as lost as he had been when he was young and he'd snuck away from a training exercise during the middle of the night. A member of the Rising Phoenix had found him again, hours later and shivering with cold.

He was trembling now and his own vitals were whining in the 'concern' range but he just stared down at the foundling in his arms, unable to jump-start his brain and act.

Grogu frowned again as the thermal sensors in his helmet screamed. Cursing in as much Jawa as he knew, he used an elbow to clear off a shelf in the well-lit medcloset. Sealed bandage packages scattered around his boots but they were useless until the medical scan could tell him what was wrong.

Thermal sensors were helpful but he'd installed proper scanners after the second time infection brought him down despite a thorough application of antibac. The retrofitting had cost a full bounty but it was everything he needed to take care of himself. The _Razor Crest_ was the closest thing he had to a home, outside of the Covert on Nevarro and since the formation of his clan with the foundling, he'd been extra careful to keep it stocked. Trouble followed them both like Tatooine sand fleas, irritating and impossible to get rid of.

Still reeling from the unfamiliar brush of another heartbeat against his skin, he peeled the child out of a dusty robe. The torn hem made his chest clench; he needed to take better care of his clan. He needed to provide for his foundling.

Flicking on the scanners, he tried to quiet his ragged breathing before the kid could notice. The scan's beeps and whirs were loud in his panicked silence. He wanted to just douse Grogu in bacta and sit down until his head stopped spinning. But every instructional parenting pamphlet he would never admit to downloading talked about the dangers of full-strength medications on younglings. Even if there had been a medical centre nearby, Mandalorians healed themselves and this child was now a Mandalorian foundling. They would just have to wait for the medfab to finish synthesizing what Grogu needed.

That mottled green chest laboured beneath his palm but those wide eyes were locked on his visor. He found himself leaning close, shushing at the whimpers, running a thumb across knuckles wrapped around his fingers. As he stared into Grogu's endless pupils, the medsensors' beeping faded and the ache in his chest flared red hot.

The world tilted and his mind flashed with split instant sensations of pain and a cacophonous _noise_ drove him to his knees. Blaster-fire overhead, his own voice calling for the kid, the bounty growling in his ear, a breathless whimper of fear he would be hearing in his dreams.

He cried out, grabbing for the blaster at his hip. The familiar grip cleared his panic enough that his own vital sensors stopped shrieking. His chest _burned_ as he climbed back to his feet and, panting, stared down at Grogu.

"Was that you?"

The child's brow wrinkled, disquieted whimpers growing louder as the medsensors chirped their alarm.

" _Dank ferrik!_ " he cried, slamming off the sound and clutching the newly synthesized low-dose painkiller. His hands trembled with frayed nerves but were gentle as they soothed the injection site, cupping that little aching head. His own throbbed in sympathy.

Every cadet in the Mandalorian Fighting Corps went through the same med training but he still fumbled with the new bacta patch. It covered more than the bruises mottling Grogu's chest and his heart ached to see his tiny foundling swathed in the bandage.

“I'm sorry,” he murmured, throat tight. It was his fault, his bounty that had injured the child. He could have put off the job but had been delaying the jump to the temple on Tython. The lonely part of him was dreading Grogu finding a Jedi master. It was his selfishness that had injured his foundling and it was beyond him how those dazed eyes could still look his way for comfort.

The responding coo was weak but the hands curled around his fingers were not. He wouldn't have freed himself if he could, but he did grab water pouches before retreating to their sleep pod. What the kid needed now was quiet and rest. They'd stay the night planet-side and see how things looked in the morning. Tython wasn't going anywhere.

Unable to bear being even a hammock away from his foundling, he settled them on the thin mattress below. Working from a half-lost memory of his mother's warmth when he was unwell, he wriggled out of his plate armour. It clanked on the floor outside the sleeping pod but for once, he didn't care about the state of it. What mattered was his foundling and staying as close as they both craved.

He hissed behind his helm at the heat still radiating off that soft green skin. Willing the bacta to work faster and soothe his aching heart, he pulled the threadbare blanket out from beneath him. The newer, Gherlian fur was wrinkled in the hammock and he couldn't reach it without getting up. He hoped, instead, that his own body heat would be enough to sooth the child.

Grogu cooed sleepily against his chest, long ear flopped over his heartbeat and hand curled around his index finger. He sighed and rubbed across soft skin, frowning at too many knobs of spine and bone. The life of a bounty hunter was no safe place for a child. Too full of adrenaline and danger; too empty of safety and rest.

"What are you doing to me?" he whispered to that down-covered head.

He had never doubted that his path was that of a hunter, had never wondered what someone might say if he removed his helmet. But now, with a clan and a foundling of his own, he was beginning to long for more than credits in his pocket and a new tracking fob. He wanted a proper bed for the child, a safe space to watch that frankly adorable waddle. A pond with _clean_ frogs because if the kid was going to eat them anyway, he might as well vet them first.

But he knew the child had a place in the universe, off training with whatever Jedi answered the call. Off without him. He'd known before Ahsoka Tano had told him, but now he could no longer ignore it.

As he watched that little head rise and fall with each of his breaths, felt the prick of nails curled into his bare skin, he knew that for the rest of his life, he would worry. He would wake up, wondering if Grogu had gotten enough rest that day. He would fall asleep, hoping someone remembered that the kid liked blue cookies but not the red ones. He would look at that lever and feel again how utterly proud he had been in that split instant, standing on some backwater planet and watching his child wield the Force. How a heartbeat later, he had longed with his entire _being_ to have powers himself, so that he could stay by his foundling's side.

He knew he couldn't be force-sensitive. The Mandalorians on Nevarro were harsh in weeding out sensitive children, even among foundlings. It was never said in so many words but rumours and half-understood memories of people disappearing overnight were slotting into place the more he learned about Jedis.

Grogu whimpered against his heart and he tugged the blanket up over them both. A boot heel hit the hatch release and he sighed when they were hidden away. The heartbeat beneath his palm was slowing, bacta patch dulling to the 'cycle complete' grey that matched his visor's thermal input. The child in his arms was resting more easily and he closed his eyes.

The Armourer had given him the Mudhorn as his signet, this foundling as his Clan. And it would be so for the rest of his life. 

**END**


End file.
